When you open a database (either existing or brand new), the following window is displayed:

Shows GRAMPS main window. Contains titlebar, menubar, toolbar, sidebar, display area, statusbar, progressbar, and scrollbars. Menubar contains File, Edit, View, Go, Bookmarks, Reports, Tools, Settings, and Help menus.

The &app; window contains the following elements: Menubar The menubar is located at the very top of the window (right below the window title) and provides access to all features of &app; through its menus. Toolbar The toolbar is located immediately below the menubar. The toolbar provides access to the most frequently used functions of &app;. The appearance of the toolbar can be adjusted in the Preferences dialog. Progressbar The progressbar is located in the lower left corner of the &app; window. It displays the progress of time consuming operations, such as opening and saving large data bases, importing and exporting to other formats, generating web sites, etc. Statusbar The statusbar is located to the right of the progressbar, on the very bottom of the &app; window. It displays information about current &app; activity and contextual information about the menu items. The behavior of the statusbar can be adjusted in Preferences dialog. Display area The largest area in the center of the &app; window is the display area. It shows certain aspects of genealogical information, depending on the currently selected View. The following six Views are available in &app;: People View, see Family View, see Pedigree View, see Sources View, see Places View, see Media View, see Views are the various ways to display different aspects of genealogical information. It is best to split the relevant information display into smaller categories, uniform in context and modality; since it is very broad and non-uniform in both context and modality. Each View represents such a split and displays a certain portion of overall available information. Before reviewing the detailed description of available Views, you will be guided through the ways of switching between the Views. Depending on the state of the ViewSidebar menu item, the View could be switched either in the sidebar or in the notebook tabs in the top part of the window. To switch the View while in a Sidebar mode, click on the desired sidebar icon.

Shows sidebar viewing mode.

To switch the View while in a Tabbed mode, click on the desired notebook tab.

Shows tabbed viewing mode.

To switch between sidebar and tabbed viewing modes, choose View Sidebar from the &app; menu. When &app; first opens a database, the View is set to the People View ( and ). The People View lists individuals whose data is stored in the database. The individuals are arranged in a tree-like structure, according to their family names. Every family name is a node of the tree. Clicking the arrow on the left of the node will toggle its expansion state. When expanded, the node's content is listed in the window. When collapsed, the content is rolled up and not visible. All the data is still intact. It is just not being displayed. The People View, in its default state, displays people's Names, &app; ID numbers, Gender, and their Birth and Death dates. The list can be ordered by any field. To order list by the Birth date, click on the Birth date column heading. To order list in reverse (descending) order, click one more time on the desired column heading. The columns of the view may be added, removed, or reordered in a Column Editor Dialog, see . Only checked columns will be shown in the view. To change their order, drag any column to its desired location inside the editor. Clicking OK will reflect the changes in the People View. To invoke Column Editor Dialog, choose EditColumn Editor. The Column Editor is available and works in the same way for all list views, not only People View.

Shows column editor dialog.

Genealogical databases may contain huge numbers of people. Since the long lists are hard for humans to manage, &app; provides a convenient way to limit the scope of browsing by using the filter. To save screen space, filter controls may be hidden, depending on the state of View Filter menu item.

Shows filter controls.

When &app; opens a database, the filter is set to the trivial filter called Entire Database, i.e. no filtering is in effect. To choose a filter, use the pop-up Filter menu above the people's list. Once the filter is chosen, click the Apply button in the upper right corner of the window. The filtering will take effect upon clicking the Apply button. GRAMPS provides a way to create cutom filters to easily show specific parts of the database. This is achieved using the Custom Filter Editor in the Tools Utilities menu. See To show males only, choose Males filter, then click the Apply button. To cancel any filtering, set the filter to Entire Database and then click the Apply button. Even if the filter controls are not displayed ( View Filter menu item is unchecked), the filtering might still be in place. In other words, the visibility of the filter controls is not related to the actual filtering imposed on the list. This may be a cause of confusion, when you enable the filtering and then remove the controls from the display. If in doubt, enable the display of filter controls by checking View Filter menu item and check what kind of filtering is currently set. Family View displays the family information of a currently selected (or Active) person. Specifically, this view shows the relationships (e.g. marriages, partnerships, etc.) of the active person, his/her parents (or step parents, or guardians, etc), and his/her children (could be step children, adopted children, etc.).

Shows Family View.

The Active person's data is in the list box in the upper left corner of the window. Directly below it, another box lists the Spouse's data, for each relationship of Active person (can be more than one). The double-arrow button to the right of the Active person list box allows you to exchange the currently selected spouse (Current spouse) with the Active person. Double-clicking on the Active person allows the editing of Active person's data. Double-clicking on the Current spouse allows you to edit their relationship information. Shift-clicking on the Current spouse allows the editing of the Current spouse's data. To add a new relationship, use one of the two upper buttons to the right of the spouse box. Click the top one to add a new person to a database and to the new relationship. Click the middle one to add a person already existing in the database to the new relationship. To remove Current spouse, click the lowest button (-) to the right of the spouse box. Note that removing a spouse from the relationship does not remove the person from the database. Most of these functions are also available by right-clicking into the spouse box and selecting an appropriate item from the context menu. The parents of both the Active person and the Current spouse are listed in the corresponding list boxes in the right-hand part of the window (Active person's parents on top, Current spouse parents on the bottom). Both list boxes have a set of three buttons on their right side. The + and - buttons allow you to add and remove parents of the Active person and the Current spouse, respectively. Clicking the right arrow button makes the family in the corresponding list box an active family. That is, it makes the selected Father the Active person, and the selected Mother the Current spouse. Most of these functions are also available by right-clicking into the parent box and selecting an appropriate item from the context menu. The bottom list box displays children of the Active person and the Current Spouse. The Children's list can be ordered by the Birth date in the usual way of clicking on the Birth date column header. In addition to the Name, ID, Gender, and Birth date columns, the list includes a Status column. The pair of status words reflect the relationship between the child and his Father/Mother (such as Birth, Adoption, etc.). Column Editor Dialog can be used to change column arrangement. Four buttons are available on the right side of the children list box. The top (left arrow) button makes the selected child the Active person. The next two buttons add a new child to the family: the upper one adds a new person to the database and to the family, the lower one just adds a person existing in the database to the family. Finally, the lowest - button removes the selected child from the family. Note that removing a child from the family does not remove the person from the database. Most of these functions are also available by right-clicking into the children box and selecting an appropriate item from the context menu. The layout of the Family View can be switched from the left-to-right arrangement (shown above) to the top-to-bottom arrangement (shown below). This can be done in the Display section of the Preferences dialog. The top-to-bottom view has the same functionality as the left-to-right view.

Shows Alternative Family View.

Shows Pedigree View.

The Pedigree View helps to visualize the place of the Active person in the tree of his/her ancestors. The Pedigree View shows four generations, going back in time from the Active person 1 to his/her parents 2, to grandparents 3, to great-grandparents 4. Each person is denoted by a box bearing the person's name. The two lines that converge on the box represent ties with the person's Father (top line) and mother (bottom line). Solid lines represent birth relations, while dashed lines represent non-birth relations (such as adoption, step-parenthood, guardianship, etc.). When the mouse moves over the white box, it expands to display the corresponding person's dates of birth and death. When the mouse is placed over the family line, the line becomes highlighted to indicate an active link: double-clicking on the line makes the corresponding ancestor the Active person. The display in that case is re-adjusted to show four generations, starting from the newly selected Active person.

Shows Children Menu in Pedigree View.

The left-hand side of the window shows the left arrow button. Upon clicking, the button expands to the menu listing the children of the Active person. Selecting the menu item makes the corresponding child the Active person. The appearance of the children's names in the menu serves to differentiate the "dead ends" of the tree from the continuing branches as follows. The children who have children appear in the menu in the boldface and italic typeset, while the children without children ("dead ends") appear in a regular font. If the Active person has a single child, no menu will be displayed (since there is no choice) and the child will become the Active person upon clicking the arrow button. The right-hand side of the window shows two right arrow buttons. When the top button is clicked, the Father of the Active person becomes the Active person. Clicking the bottom button makes the Mother of the Active person the Active person. Again, the display is re-adjusted to show four generations, starting from the newly selected Active person.

Shows Context Menu in Pedigree View.

Right-clicking on any person's box in the Pedigree View will bring up the context menu. Among other useful items, the context menu has submenus listing Spouses, Siblings, Children, and Parents of that person. Insensitive (grayed out) sub-menus indicate the absence of the data in the appropriate category. Similarly to the children menu above, children's and parents' menus distinguish continuing lines from dead ends.

Shows Pedigree View with the anchor set.

An additional advanced scheme of labeling generations exists in Pedigree View. It becomes available by setting the anchor on some active person. If the anchor is set, the generations are labeled as follows. The anchor person (and his/her generation) is labeled as 0. The ancestor generations are numbered with positive integers (1, 2, 3, etc.) while the descendant generations are numbered with negative integers (-1, -2, -3, etc.). In all cases, the number represents the number of generations between the labeled generation and the anchor person. In this mode, you can travel along the extensive pedigree line and see the number of generations counting from the anchor person. To set the anchor, select the Set anchor menu item from the right-click context menu, when the desired person is the Active person in the Pedigree View. The labels will change immediately, and the name of the anchor person will appear at the lower left corner of the display area. The set anchor person will stay in effect until either the anchor is removed (by selecting the Remove anchor item from the context menu), or until the active person chosen is unrelated to the anchor person. The latter move can be made using extensive navigation tools available in &app;, see for the detailed reference.

Shows Sources View.

The Sources View lists the sources of information stored in the database. This can include various documents (birth, death, and marriage certificates, etc.), books, films, journals, private diaries; virtually anything that can be classified as a source of information. The sources can be used as a reference for any event stored in the database. The Source View lists the Title, ID, and the Author of the source. Any column can be used for sorting the list. The usual rules apply: one click for ascending order, another click for descending order. Column Editor Dialog may be used to rearrange the displayed columns.

Shows Places View.

The Places View lists the geographical places in which the events of the database took place. These could be places of birth, death, and marriages of people, as well as their home, employment, education addresses, or any other conceivable reference to the geographical location. The Places View lists the places' Name, ID, Church Parish, City, County, State, and Country. All of these columns can be used for sorting by the usual sorting rules. Column Editor Dialog may be used to rearrange the displayed columns.

Shows Media View.

The Media View is a list of Media Objects used in the database. Media Objects are any files that relate somehow to the stored genealogical data. Technically, any file can be stored as a Media Object. Most frequently, these are images, audio files, animation files, etc. The list box on the bottom lists the Name, ID, Type, and Path of the Media Object. Column Editor Dialog may be used to rearrange the displayed columns, which obey usual sorting rules. The top part of the GRAMPS window shows a preview (if available) and information about the Media Object.